Trinidad and Tobago’s senior men got their first feel of the Colorado conditions as Dennis Lawrence conducted his first practice session of the residential training camp at Prentup Field,University of Colorado at 5:30pm (7:30pm TT Time) on Wednesday.
The 17-man squad arrived from Port of Spain on Tuesday night along with the technical staff and was joined by English-based midfielder Andre Boucaud.
On May 28th, T&T will play the first of two practice games against Colorado Rapids at the Rapids training field, located mere metres away from Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, the venue for the World Cup qualifier against the United States on June 8th. The US national team will also train at the Training Field from around May 29th.
The temperatures in Denver, Colorado range between 20 to 29 degrees celcius during the day but drops to as low as 16 degrees celsius at night time this week. Colorado which is nicknamed the Mile-High City because its official elevation, is exactly one mile (5280 feet) above sea level, making it the highest major city in the United States.
“It’s obviously good for us to get there and we’ll take the first day to allow the players to get a feel of the environment and the conditions. The reason we are out here is to get down to work immediately with the eighteen players available to us now with a few more expected over the next couple of days,” Lawrence told TTFA Media.
Boucaud meantime is anticipating the training camp, describing Lawrence’s decision to come here this early before gameday as critical.
“When I got the news that I’d have to fly over directly to Denver on the 23rd, I thought well this is exactly what we need and with my season ending, it was perfect timing for me to meet up with the group,” Boucaud told TTFA Media.
“The next few days are extremely important for us in terms of preparing well and acclimatising for the match. We have a lot of belief and good reasons to think that we can get something from this match but the work has to be put in and I’m happy that the coach has been able to get the camp off with the help of the association. Once the full compliment of players are here and coach gets to work with his final squad from the early part of June then it’s down to us to go everything necessary to take us into the game fully ready,” Boucaud said.